I first saw this series called Dennou Coil last year. Wikipedia describes the show as a

“Japanese animation science fiction series depicting a near future where augmented reality (AR) technology has just begun to enter the mainstream. The series takes place in the fictional city of Daikoku, a hotbed of AR development with an emerging city-wide virtual infrastructure. It follows a group of children as they use AR glasses to unravel the mysteries of the half real, half Internet city, using a variety of illegal software tools, techniques, and virtual pets to manipulate the digital landscape.”

The show does an incredible job depicting how seamlessly the real and the virtual worlds could be integrated in the future. I love the way that the characters interact with virtual characters. People can pick up and hold virtual pets, they try to dodge huge “Saatchi” machines which are agents of anti-virus bots, they collect and they can launch virtual attacks on other users. The only hardware required in the world of the show is a pair of glasses which allows them to see virtual reality superimposed onto the real world.

Here’s the full Wiki for Dennou Coil.

Seriously.

This thought came to me as I pondered how to improve the currently airing Kanamemo. I realized that the structure of the story – the female main character, upon the death of her grandma who doubled as the parental figure, goes off and without meaning to, ends up working as an apprentice in a business – almost exactly matches the recently completed Ristorante Paradiso. That show was one of my favorites of the Spring season but Kanamemo got dropped for being so lousy. So what’s the difference that caused the disparity between the two?

I could fault Kanamemo for including characters like the loli-obsessed yuri girl and praise Ristorante Paradiso for including interesting characters like Luciano but that wouldn’t get to the heart of the matter. The difference – I realized – is Ristorante Paradiso packed their show with older men and these men, because they’ve lived a longer time, have accrued interesting and varied life stories that influenced their actions and made them great and unique characters.

I concluded then the way to improve Kanamemo was to include some older characters – maybe change it so the paper is run by an elderly couple that are working hard to keep the paper going even when more and more people turn to digitally getting their news. I’m sure there are other improvements one could do but just changing this one thing makes this show sound much more interesting.

My mind wouldn’t stop there, I started to think about other older characters in anime. The first show that came to mind was Ghost in Shell: Stand Alone Complex. For all it’s sleek, cyber-infused future, the character that just oozes coolness isn’t the Major or Batou but Aramaki. With a simple look he could stare down a criminal or just as easily, out-maneuver a government bent on shutting him up.

Or who could forget the granny from Dennou Coil

Or Takeda Shingen from Sengoku Basara

Or the detectives Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple from Great Detectives Poirot and Marple

And I could go on – I didn’t even touch any of Miyazaki’s movies – but I think I made my point. Anime needs to have more mature characters (and American animation too – just look what Pixar did with UP.)

Dennō Coil (電脳コイル, Dennō Koiru?, lit. Electric Brain Coil or Computer Coil), Coil — A Circle of Children, is a Japanese animation science fiction series depicting a near future where augmented reality (AR) technology has just begun to enter the mainstream. The series takes place in the fictional city of Daikoku, a hotbed of AR development with an emerging city-wide virtual infrastructure. It follows a group of children as they use AR glasses to unravel the mysteries of the half real, half Internet city, using a variety of illegal software tools, techniques, and virtual pets to manipulate the digital landscape.

Dennō Coil, in development for over a decade, is the series director debut of Japanese animator Mitsuo Iso. It premiered on NHK Educational on May 12, 2007. Due to the animators involved in its production and its unusually high-profile television broadcast time slot, Dennō Coil was highly anticipated.[1]

In 2007, Dennou Coil hit the anime scene and blew everyone (who watched it) away. Touting one of the most impressive production staffs in recent history, Dennou Coil went on to win numerous awards, even one that was not exclusive to anime. If you want a very basic idea of Dennou Coil and its level of quality, keep in mind that it won some of these awards alongside Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann. Dennou Coil however is nothing like Gurren-Lagann, general excellence aside.

In the world of Dennou Coil, the latest craze among kids are these special glasses which let them see a nearly both the real world and cyberspace mapped 1:1. This isn’t a Digital World that whisks you far, far away, this is simply a digital world. If there’s a garbage can in the real world, there will be on in the cyber world exactly where the real one would be, though for the safety of everyone it doesn’t work the other way around. “Dennou” literally means “Electric Brain,” and is one way of saying “computer” in Japanese.

The story focuses on two girls both named Yuuko, who each get nicknames based on the spelling of their names in Japanese and their basic personalities. Okonogi Yuuko, nicknamed Yasako for her gentle personality, is an elementary school girl who inherited her cyber-glasses from her grandfather, a man who was central to the development of the glasses. At the start of Dennou Coil, she has just recently moved from her home town to Daikoku City where her grandmother lives. Amasawa Yuuko, nicknamed Isako for her confidence and bravery, is a girl the same age as Yasako. In an environment where mischievous kids with a little bit of know-how in manipulating the virtual landscape call themselves hackers, Isako is known as a “programmer,” someone with intimate knowledge of the cyber world far exceeding the norm.

Daikoku City is a playground of sorts for those who wear the glasses, as kids compete with each other to find shiny, crude digital stones known as metabugs, which translate directly into currency in the virtual world, which translate into tool such as laser beam attacks and steel walls with which kids can participate in general shenanigans. Keeping them on their toes is a very robust and merciless anti-virus program named “Satchii” that will attack anything that doesn’t belong, which includes the illegal add-ons most kids are equipped with in Daikoku City.

Dennou Coil was produced by Madhouse, one of the oldest Japanese animation studios and responsible for an incredible range of works such as Ace o Nerae!, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Kaiba. The project is headed by Iso Mitsuo, a key animator for Giant Robo OVA and FLCL who is the head writer, director, and original creator of Dennou Coil. Animators include Honda Takeshi and Inoue Toshiyuki, both of whom have worked on Kon Satoshi’s movies such as Millennium Actress and Perfect Blue.

To say the least, Dennou Coil is a very impressive show.  The show’s themes and general feel are always changing, always keeping you on your toes. Sometimes it’s about kids having fun in a world meant for kids. Sometimes it’s about exploring the mysteries of the virtual world and outrunning Satchii. At one point, Dennou Coil turns into survival horror. And the amazing thing is, it all makes sense given the world of Dennou Coil. It is consistent without being predictable, and varied without losing focus. As I watched Dennou Coil from start to finish, I had one thought sitting strong in my head. “Ah, so this is what it’s like to have a show planned out from start to finish.”

You have shows which are described as “a little bit of everything,” but Dennou Coil, to paraphrase Chef  Boyardee, Jr., is “a lot of bit of everything.” It evokes a sense of discovery and wonder in the little things in life that I really enjoy in shows. The world of Dennou Coil is deep and robust, and the more academic anime fan could probably write multiple theses on some of the ideas present in Dennou Coil. The show’s major plot lines get stronger and stronger as the series progresses, and does so in a way where you can notice that they’ve been building up to the climax. Single-episode stories are also present, and they range from the silly to the heart-felt. Even the recap episode is entertaining as it takes place from the perspective of a character who normally doesn’t get to speak much. The storytelling is subtle without being excessively obtuse. Vital information is explained only as far as you need to know. The animation is amazing, with quality that is almost unheard of for a television series, especially in recent years. A great number of the staff members have extensive experience as animators and it shows, from the way characters interact with the environment to the way they express themselves to the world of Dennou Coil itself runs on a day-to-day basis. And the characters in Dennou Coil are among the best I’ve ever seen.  In terms of visual design and personality, the characters are distinct without being shallow, and the character  development in this show is on another level entirely. They learn and grow, they laugh and cry, the emotions that run through them all feel incredibly genuine, a “realistic virtual world” in a very different sense.

I have not re-watched Dennou Coil since finishing it, but I definitely know that it’s the kind of show that can be viewed repeatedly. Dennou Coil has a lot of depth from its animation quality to its writing, from its world to its characters, but that depth and sophistication has no high entry barriers. You can enjoy the show at any level, as it will reward you no matter what.

I was originally planning to analyse Dennou Coil to justify why the hell I like it so much…then I realised that this was perhaps the wrong approach. I don’t really need to go into some sort of philosophical rant about something just to prove I like it, but I shall explain what makes Dennou Coil so special for me nonetheless.

I thought it would be apt to go with my current favourite as a lead in to my world of anime blogging so here we go. We get all sorts of themes and angles from the series – it’s essentially a kid’s show, yes, but like Harry Potter or the more recent Twilight series, many of its themes and ideas cross the boundaries of age to appeal to a much broader audience.

Being a kid's show isn't a bad thing at all - it makes for a very humorous, accessible and meaningful show.

The show is about opposites – loneliness V.S. friendship; conflict V.S. acceptance and so on. Basically it is about the distance between people and the way in which we are all connected. Dennou Coil could not have been able to spread this message if it weren’t for its characters. Add to that the unique pseudo-futuristic-but-down-to-earth world that they live in and suddenly, you have a very refreshing and engaging series.

Sure, a lot of these themes could have been developed well enough even if the characters didn’t have to interact with cyberspace, but this added dimension (I think) is very relevant to our current world. In this age, we are being bombarded with information, being overloaded with text and numbers to the point where most relationships are now being forged through a cyber interface. We live a 24/7 lifestyle where we are always connected, and yes, this has significant advantages, but what about its disadvantages? We now interact with others through some form of screen so that we only show others what we want them to see. We highlight out plus points and hide our minus points so the world only knows our avatar and not our true selves. Simply put, even if two people are connected, does it really mean that they are close? Is this an advantage or disadvantage? You decide.

The distance between characters is a very significant aspect of the show.

The characters in the show do this – both Haraken and Isako are proof of that. Both use cyberspace in varying degrees to hide their true selves for a large portion of their respective arcs. They use it as a defensive mechanism – under the labels of research and hacking respectively. While they are both fairly active in they cyber world in some form, they are socially withdrawn for the most part. They are both connected and alienated.

The fragile path of connectivity

So is Dennou Coil a journey of connecting on multiple levels, not just digitally? I think so. It is about forging bonds that are not easily broken – by having characters throw away their masks of ignorance or arrogance and just reaching mutual acceptance. It’s not always easy, as Isako says,

“There is a distance between people. A large distance…But if I search patiently, slowly, I may be able to find a path that shortens this distance.”

Ask a fan of science fiction (as defined as someone who reads science fiction) what they would like to see more of in the genre and one popular answer might be more quality SF on television. There is a limit to how often a person can rewatch the same few shows like Firefly, Stargate, and Twilight Zone to satisfy the urge to watch something SF. And heaven forbid if an American SF fan wanted to see realistic cutting edge technology like Augmented Reality or a show that remembered that space is a vacuum.

When I became an anime fan I wasn’t expecting to find shows that where both good anime and good SF but I’ve come across a number of shows that do both. So in the interest of helping non-anime science fiction fans, I thought I’d point out some of the best titles. For each listing I’ll list what type of SF it is, a fairly spoiler free synopsis of the show, and the show’s availability in America.

A final word before moving onto the list. One of the big differences between anime and most American shows – if you’re not familiar with anime – is that in anime, just because the characters are school age, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the show is any less complex then if it had only adults. Granted, in many instances anime can be juvenile but that’s the same as with science fiction – not all of it’s mature but some of it is.

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

Movie
Type of science fiction – Time travel
Available on DVD – English dub and subtitles

This movie is about a normal high school girl when she suddenly gains the power to travel to the recent past but this isn’t a story about how she saves the world. Instead, this is a story about how she uses this power to improve her life and the consequences of her actions. It starts off good; she uses the power to eat the pudding cup that her sister stole, she goes back to ace a recent quiz and she switches what food she makes during cooking class to name just a few. As time moves forward, though, she sees what the unintended consequences are to her actions and must try to fix what she’s done.

This type of story is by no means unique but what sets this movie apart is the characters are given abundant depth so you sympathize and like them immensely. Also to the movie’s credit, it never gets that contrived and arbitrary feeling many time travel stories get. It somewhat reminds me of a Connie Willis time travel story in that the focus is on the characters and the time travel is just a means to the end.

Dennou Coil

Television Series, 26 Episodes
Type of science fiction – Augmented Reality
Unlicensed * – English subtitles only

Earlier this year I wrote of this show, “Imagine a show that deals of the same cutting edge technology that’s found in works by Charles Stross and Vernor Vinge. Imagine this show centers around characters still in elementary school. Finally, imagine this show running on the Japanese equivalent of America’s PBS station. If you could imagine a show like this then you’ve probably already watched Dennou Coil.” It was hard to imagine that a show with this type of background would ever see the light of day but it did and it was a winner.

The show knows how to balance the light-hearted antics of the kids with the more serious story of one tranfer student’s effort to figure out what happened to her older brother who disappeared while using his AR glasses. This show also did a good job in imagining how AR operate and what new problems would need to be addressed. One of my favorite touches was the mobile anti-virus program that went around the city searching for irregularities in the system and fixing them. Since all the kids hacked their AR glasses to do more, they had to keep away from these programs or else their glasses would get fried and they’d have to get a new pair of glasses.

Kaiba

Television Series, 12 Episodes
Type of science fiction – Total mind and selective memory uploading and transference
Unlicensed * – English subtitles only

Kaiba wakes up at the beginning of episode 1 without any memories. A scan of his mind reveals that his mind literally contains no memories. So he does the logical thing and goes on a quest to figure out who or what he is. Along the way he loses his original body, gains two new ones, sees first hand how mind uploading and transference has altered society and finds out that he’s lost someone that’s important to him.

For all it’s focus on the technology that’s made this society possible, it doesn’t forget that to make a good show one needs characters and a story to tell. It was advertised as a SF/Love story and succeeds on both fronts. So don’t let the odd animation style stop you from watching this exceptional SF show.

Planetes

Television Series, 26 episodes
Type of science fiction – nuclear fusion, moon colonies and mining
Available on DVD – English dub and subtitles

The year is 2075 and space has become dangerously full of space junk. To contend with this problem, governments offer bounties to companies for the removal of debris that would threaten the human activities in space. As you might guess, even governmental bounties do not make this profitable for companies so these companies run their Debris Sections on a shoe-string and duck tape budget. Planetes focuses on one company’s Debris Section and their adventures.

A series about space garbagemen might not sound interesting but it turns out that this series is anything but boring. Some episodes focus on what happens when the space junk turns out to not be junk; for example, in one episode it’s a secret military satellite and in another, it’s the coffin of someone buried in space. Other episodes take place on the moon bases and we get the chance to meet one of the first persons to be born on the moon and see how that affects her outlook on life. Other episodes deal with a terrorist group from the have-not nations that can’t take advantage of nuclear fusion because they can’t afford to mine the moon for fuel like the rich countries and how the paths of our Debris Section and them cross.

And if you still need a reason to watch this show, then let me say that this show remembers that space is a vacuum and sound doesn’t carry.

Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex

Television Series, 52 episodes
Type of science fiction – A.I., prosthetic bodies, mind uploading
Available on DVD – English dub and subtitles

Don’t confuse the television series with the pair of movies – they’re the same franchise but unconnected to each other. I listed the series over the movies because the series has more action, lacks much of snobby philosophizing of the movie, and has the time to better explore it’s futuristic world and the ramifications of it’s advanced technology.

GitS:SAC, as it’s abbreviated, takes place in the near future where mind uploading and entire prosthetic bodies are a reality and almost commonplace. To further blur the line between man and machine, A.I. development has come a long way in creating A.I. that is very humanlike. In this hyperconnected, digital future society it becomes imperative for a government to have crack professionals that can keep it’s citizens safe from the profuse types of cybercrimes of the future. This is where Section 9 – a mix of ex-mercenaries, hackers, and intelligent cops – of the Japanese government comes in.

One of my favorite episodes involves the uploaded brain of a film maker. In physical life, he found it nearly impossible to find the funding to make his movies. To remedy this, he uploaded his mind into a digital braincase where he could create the movie and people could jack in and watch his movies in a virtual movie theater. The problem for Section 9 is that his movies where so good that almost no one wanted to leave – even if that meant their physical bodies died.

So, if you’re looking for a show that is one of best examples of how SF can be entertaining, action-packed, and still intelligent – check out Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex.

Freedom

OVA Series, 7 episodes
Type of science fiction – moon civilization, massive environment cataclysm on Earth
Available on DVD, Blu-Ray – English dub and subtitles

It’s the dawn of the 23^rd century and it’s been a hundred years since a human-triggered environmental cataclysm has supposedly rendered Earth uninhabitable. This has left the couple million inhabitants of the Moon City Eden as the last outpost for humanity. A strictly controlled society is necessary for Eden to survive but the teens of Eden don’t like it and this causes them to frequently get punished. It happens that while inspecting conduits outside as punishment, one of these teens, Takeru, witnesses an object crashing into the Moon’s surface. He rushes over to examine the crash site and his life will be altered forever after he discovers what this object’s cargo was.

This was a fun title to watch and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. One caveat with this title is that originally this was only 6 episodes long and when you watch it, you’ll see how the ending of episode 6 was a natural ending point. Episode 7 was added later on and while it was good to see what happens next, they tried to cover to much in one episode so it felt very rushed. Just a heads-up, this is still a very good show to watch – especially if you like the type of SF where humans overcome adversity in the face of danger.

The next two anime shows might not be science fiction per say but are definitely SF-related and almost guaranteed to be liked by a SF fan.

Kino’s Journey

TV Series, 13 episodes + 2 Stand-alone short movies
TV Series is available on DVD with English dub and subtitles but the short movies remain unlicensed

Kino is a traveler. Travelers spend their life traveling to the many different small city-states that dot the landscape of this earthlike world. For the most part these city-states leave each other alone which has allowed many different types of cities to develop. Some are high-tech, some are decidedly low-tech, and most fall somewhere in the middle. Kino spends only 3 days in any one city, just long enough to get a taste of what makes the city tick but not long enough to want to stay.

This type of set up allows Kino to be presented with many different scenarios that are designed to make the viewer think. For example, in one episode she visits a city that had been locked in a century long war with a neighboring city but fifteen years ago peace was achieved. The citizens are very proud at being able to finally end this war so Kino checks out the History museum. The curator of the museum, a mother who lost her husband and sons to the war, was instrumental – along with a mother on the other side – in ending the war. Their solution involves a yearly contest between the two sides, with a set number of combatants and automatic rifles, in how many people they can kill in a nearby underdeveloped city. The side that kills the most, is that year’s winner. Sounds horrible but as the curator points out, overall the number of people dieing is less and the standard of living in both cities have increased immensely now that the expensive weapons of war no longer have to be made.

Not every episode has a scenario this extreme or depressing but the series will make you think, much like good science fiction. I highly recommend this title.

Millenium Actress

Movie
Available on DVD – English subtitles only

Millenium Actress is one of those titles that are hard to adequately explain. The frame of the movie follows a documentary maker as he interviews an aging film actress about her life. We discover, from the moment she bumps into a fleeing artist/anti-government protestor in the early 1930’s and falls in love with him, that her life has echoed many parts that she played in the movies. This fact might help to explain how during the course of the interview, her recollections seem to bleed into real-life and the documentarian and cameraman find themselves physically watching parts of her life and finding themselves in the movies that she was in.

This might sound a little odd but it makes for a very riveting movie. In fact, as I was writing this I got the urge to watch it again and did so. The reason for it’s inclusion on this list comes from the actress being in SF movies and the use of one of these movies as a metaphor for something I won’t spoil here.

That’s it for the list now. I plan on adding onto this list in the future as I watch other worthy titles so I’ll be giving this post it’s own easily findable page up above.

*It’s relatively easy to find and download unlicensed anime on the internet, subtitled in whatever language you want. I don’t have the space here or desire to argue about fansubs so I will leave it at this. If the show is unlicensed, the only way to get it licensed is if American companies think they can sell enough DVDs so the more people that have seen these unlicensed shows and are talking about them – the greater chance that it’ll get licensed. And if the show is available on DVD and you liked it – buy it so more shows of this type are made. And if you’re unsure about a show and don’t want to spend money on a DVD you won’t like, remember that it’s rentable through a service like Netflix.

GET THAT SHIRT WET! C:

Today, I was looking back upon my old favorite list anime..

And there it was, sitting on #3, Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni.

Now that I think about it, it was a pretty revolutionary series, because before Higurashi, I was watching something along the lines of “Love Hina“, “Zero no Tsukaima“, and such.. but then.. BAAAM.

I’m just 2 episodes into Higurashi no Naku Koro Ni.. and it’s all like, “USO-DA!” And then I think that’s when I got into some pretty psycho stuff. C:

Following Higurashi, I followed up on Mushishi, Dennou Coil and Gurrenn Lagann, mainly because I was sick and tired of typical harem animations. So I threw out H2O ~Footprints in the Sand~, Love Hina, Negima because they were too.. softcore? Is that the right word? I don’t know, they didn’t contain that -SPLURCH- -KABOOM- -CRUNCH- excitement some other animes had..

So yeah! Just a random thought for today, with a little bonus picture of Rena and Mion (Is it Shion?) having a waterfight (I think it was actually in the anime , 2nd season, 6th or 7th episode)..

But for those who haven’t seen Higurashi before.. hmm.. that picture represents about 50% of what the anime is like. The other 50%.. you’ll have to find out yourself.

Inspired by thekoalaz.  Listen to it here.

This is the ending song for Dennou Coil, an anime that takes place in a futuristic world, where reality and virtual reality are difficult to distinguish for the characters.  Without going into too much detail, one of the major themes throughout Dennou Coil was the distance that separates people.  The characters are able to live in a virtual world by using AR glasses, which are some sort of advanced technology that syncs a virtual world with reality.  The AR glasses allow the characters to have Dennou pets, and everything is happy until the Nulls, and the “other side” is introduced.  As with anything in reality, things in this virtual reality are bound by the rules of mortality, however, these rules are a bit more complex.  Many of the main characters have lost something, relative, friend, or pet, to “the other side”, and in trying to bridge this distance, they come perilously close to losing their own consciousness as well (kinda have to watch it to get this part).  This is perhaps clarified through the director Mitsuo Iso’s words: “there will always be a distance between people, and even between things that seem within ones’ reach. And that one must walk down a long, thin and winding road before they reach one’s heart. There’s tons of obstacles. It’s in fact like the roads in towns of old.”

This song is really about this distance that separates all people, and all things.  Everyone walks their own paths.  We all have control over which paths we take.  But we don’t always know where the path leads, or with what other paths ours will connect with.  So, although there exists such distances that separate us all, our roads will eventually meet somewhere, allowing us to bridge that distance.

A few notes on the translation:  I’d like to thank thekoalaz for this concept, and for his help in correcting my translation.  For those who can’t read japanese, I’m sorry I didn’t add the romanji for the song (I’m sure you can find it online somewhere).  I think the last line brings the entire song together, as well as the many themes of Dennou Coil.  The last line literally says that the roads “are connected”, but I thought “are connected” wouldn’t convey the real meaning of the song, which is somewhat implied, so I changed it to: “until our paths finally meet”.

Alas, the title does not mean I’m going to review the Lewis Carroll story. Instead, the title was just one that popped into my mind when thinking of a what I should call this entry. Recently, I saw a question – If you could live in any anime world, what would it be? – and I was surprised when I couldn’t come up with a quick answer. I did find an answer in the end though.

The first thing I realized was the question asked for which world and not which anime you’d like to live in. This had profound consequences in my choice because, for example, even if I’d really enjoy being a member of Haruhi’s SOS-Dan and hang out with Yuki, Kyon, Mikuru, and Haruhi – what are the chances of me actually being there? More than likely, I’d live nowhere near North High School.

For the purposes of this entry I’m going to assume that my circumstances are not that different from what I’m living here so I’d be living in a small city, part of a middle-class family, and a resident of the US if it exists in the show.

This cuts out a lot of shows since how is the world of Maid Guy different halfway around the globe in America from the one I’m living in now? Or, unless every boy in high school gets the chance to have 3-6 girls go after him as a boyfriend at the same time, how is the world of a typical harem anime or even a show like Kanon or Clannad that different from our own?

This leaves SF, fantasy, historical or alternative historical worlds as really the only ones to choose from. I went through my anime and came up with 3 strong contenders to pick from.

The first is the world of Planetes. I suspect that I was born a generation or three too soon to have a realistic shot at ever going to space. Consequently, picking an anime world where space flight is more common place is obvious. What sets the world of Planetes apart from say Crest of the Stars or other space anime is that humanity is on the verge of something big. With humanity using the gas giants as an endless source of energy, it wouldn’t be shocking to see us taking the first steps to terraform Mars and Venus, colonizing the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, or mining the asteroid belt within the lifetime of Hachimaki and Tanabe. It would be an exciting time to live through.

The second is the world of Someday’s Dreamers. The existence of magic in a world would be a cool thing to have and if I happened to be able to use magic, it would be even cooler. What sets this world apart from other magical worlds is that magic in this world is used for things outside of throwing fireballs around and also magic is just part of everyday life. It seems that humanity has gotten to a point there they can accept magic users, if not perfectly, at least better then I think we could here.

The third is the world of Kino’s Journey. I hesitated in listing this one because when I thought about it, the idea of different city-states living independently and at vast differences of knowledge and technology seemed very unlikely. Why is there a lack of nations in this world? It seems too artificial but at the same time, I would greatly desire the chance to explore it like Kino. (Incidentally, will there ever be more Kino’s Journey anime and why can’t I buy the light novels over here?)

Two other shows, Dennou Coil and Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou, earned honorable mentions in my book. The reason why I didn’t include Coil is that I think that within a couple of decades there is a good chance that I’ll being living in a world similar to it. As for YKK, the manga and anime made living in it’s post-apocalypse world seem enjoyable and relaxing but in reality it’s probably not as fun as it seems.

In the end I would choose the world of Planetes. It’s not without it’s problems but then again can human society ever be without it’s problems. Probably not, but I think the best chance of overcoming our problems is for us to continue forward. I also like this world because problems we’re facing now like global warming and running out of fossil fuels seems to have been answered or at least become more manageable. And, of course, I think even I could visit space and do something (space garbage-collector seems like a fun job).

I’m curious what other people think. Does anyone out there want to live in the world of Death Note or live in the historical world of Kenshin. Or maybe the world of Pokemon catches your fancy. And I’m sure long time viewers of anime know of many other places to live that I’m not even aware of.

]]> http://piecesofthings.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/damn-you-curry/ Mon, 04 Aug 2008 06:29:00 +0000 mrpony http://piecesofthings.wordpress.com/2008/08/04/damn-you-curry/

I figure I don’t really need to know about diagnosing cervicitis, so instead: Episode 12 of Dennou Coil.  I’m relatively new to series anime and I don’t know if this is par for the course or not, but I gotta say, the production value is slick! It’s got some great editing, the design is great, the characters aren’t one-sided, the running storyline is complex, and they even put a lot of depth and consistency into the technology they created. This makes me all warm and fuzzy inside.

PLUS, I’m super impressed with the subtitles. Not only do they make sense and stick to a modern vernacular, but they even bother to translate signs and pan with the camera. And I love the added educational bites! 

 I should do all my learning this way. ^_^

26 “Yasako and Isako”
“Yasako to Isako” (ヤサコとイサコ) December 1, 2007

23 “A Realized Desire”
“Kanaerareta Negai” (かなえられた願い) November 10, 2007